


said the villagers to the knight, we’ve already saved ourselves

by eneiryu



Series: the ruins of a softer world [2]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Established Relationship, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Nightmares
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-28
Updated: 2018-10-28
Packaged: 2019-08-08 15:52:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,258
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16432409
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eneiryu/pseuds/eneiryu
Summary: The first night that Theo wakes up from a nightmare after it's all over, he nearly puts his clawed fist through Liam’s ribcage.





	said the villagers to the knight, we’ve already saved ourselves

**Author's Note:**

> Post- _i know all sorts of things i don't believe_. This is pretty much pure, shameless self-indulgence, but I figured what the hell, others might want to indulge with me. Series title taken from [this](http://www.asofterworld.com/index.php?id=1237) asofterworld comic. 
> 
> This will very likely not be my last venture into this universe--I've already got most of the last chapter of _i know all sorts of things_ written from Lydia's POV that I will post...sometime soon-ish, and a handful of other ideas for missing scenes and such. So! I will throw this out there--if you have prompts, hit me up. I'll see what I can do.
> 
> A thousand thank-yous to everyone who's read and commented on any of my works. Your feedback is very much loved and appreciated.

The first night that Theo wakes up with the sense memory of dozens of mistletoe splinters burrowing like acid into his stomach and throat, he nearly puts his clawed fist through Liam’s ribcage.

It isn’t purposeful, or even _conscious_ ; he just wakes up in the dark, his whole body one long line of burning, remembered agony, and for a split-second after his eyes snap open, the figure leaning over him is Monroe, telling him in her soft, silky voice _I can make it stop_. He’s striking out before he even knows what’s happening, and is only saved from disemboweling Liam by a combination of his own reflexes—coming back online in a sudden burst of terrified awareness—and Liam, who narrowly manages to throw himself backwards just in time for Theo’s claws to score five deep lines across his chest rather than punching through it.

“Shit,” Theo pants, staring at Liam’s bloody shirt—at the torn-but-healing skin and muscle he can see beneath it—in absolute horror; in the next instant he’s shoved himself so hard and so far away from Liam that he nearly topples off the bed, just manages to get his legs underneath him so that he hits his knees instead of falling on his ass.

Liam is grimacing down at himself too, but when he glances up and sees whatever is on Theo’s face he says his name and makes a lunge for him. Theo jerks backwards, avoiding him, and then scrambles to his feet, turns and stumbles his way into the bathroom until he can brace himself over the sink, chest still heaving and breath still coming in short, quick pants. He squeezes his helplessly flared eyes shut and grits his teeth, feels the sharp prick of his fangs against the inside of his lips. His hands are still clawed and the _screech_ they make as he curls them hard against the porcelain is like nails on a chalkboard, but the sound helps, cuts through some of the formless, directionless mass of panic in his brain.

Theo forces himself to breathe through his nose, relax his grip. After a minute or so of that, he finds he can let the shift fade, his nails once more blunt against the cool edge of the sink, his teeth once more human. He tips his head to the side and opens his eyes to look at Liam, sees him leaning against the door jamb watching Theo; his shirt is in tatters, the edges of the tears wet with blood, and Theo grimaces, drops his head back down.

“Sorry,” He murmurs quietly.

Liam makes a dismissive noise and comes forward; Theo can see him out of the corner of his eye, can hear the creak of the floorboards, and he tenses, the muscles in his back knotting. Liam isn’t an idiot, he must notice, but he doesn’t stop, just puts one hand on Theo’s sweat-slick shoulder and slides it across until he can cup it around Theo’s opposite bicep, his chin hooking over Theo’s shoulder: his fingers dig into Theo’s arm and his chin into Theo’s trapezius; anchor-points.

“Monroe?” He asks simply, voice sleep-rough.

Theo’s fingers spasm around the edge of the sink, and he just barely manages to clamp down on his body’s urge to shift his nails back into claws. Liam must catch the movement because he brings his free hand forward until he can wrap it over and around Theo’s left hand, start gently but firmly prying it up. Theo can feel the tendons across the backs of his palms jumping in response and so he closes his eyes, concentrates on the points of pressure that Liam’s hands, his chin, are digging into his skin, until he can straighten his fingers out, release the sink.

Liam hums appreciatively and laces his hand through Theo’s, clenching just tight enough to be riding the edge of pain. It’s forceful and grounding and exactly what Theo needs, and his chest goes tight; he turns and presses his forehead against Liam’s temple, just breathes him in. Liam tilts his head into the touch and stays still; he just keeps his grip around Theo’s hand strong and the pressure of the fingers of his other hand and chin purposeful and just stays still, let’s Theo finish coming down—coming _out_ —of his nightmare, his memory.

Eventually Theo pulls back, Liam picking up his chin and releasing his grips so that Theo can turn to face him. But he doesn’t move back and immediately reaches back out once Theo has pivoted, wraps one hand in the fabric of Theo’s shirt covering his left shoulder and the other in the fabric covering his stomach; over where Preston’s wound once sat and over where Monroe’s capsule had first split open to spill its poison. It’s a habit he’d picked up after their first night together and hadn’t yet lost.

Theo reaches forward with one hand and slips his fingers into the tears in Liam’s shirt, tugging lightly; he can feel the unpleasant wetness of cooling blood on the backs of his knuckles as he does, “I could have seriously hurt you.”

Liam shrugs, unconcerned; Theo not only sees the movement but feels it, his shirt going taut in Liam’s grip, “For like, half a second before I healed. The most damage probably would have been to your mattress. Blood’s a bitch to get out.”

“You’re pretty blasé about your own safety considering how neurotic you are about mine,” Theo points out, a little annoyed at Liam’s casual dismissal of that fact that Theo literally almost disemboweled him.

Liam gives him a challenging and slightly incredulous look, “You sure you want to go down that road? Because if we’re going to compare you scratching me up a bit after a nightmare with you sacrificing yourself to a fanatic werewolf hunter who then turned your blood into literal poison, I think I’m going to come out on top.”

There’s a lot wrong with that sentence—Theo nearly putting his hand through Liam’s chest is not _scratching him up a bit_ , and saying Theo _sacrificed himself to a fanatic werewolf hunter_ glosses over some very important and relevant context—but Theo knows first that he’d never win that fight, and second that neither one of them actually wants to have it. Or have it _again_ , anyway; they’d been having iterations of it since Liam first banged into Theo’s apartment after he’d gotten home from the hospital miraculously not dead.

So instead Theo just snorts and brings his free hand up to cup the back of Liam’s head, use that and the grip he’s got on Liam’s ruined shirt to pull him in so that Theo can kiss him. Liam releases Theo’s shirt so that he can slip his hands underneath, scratch lightly at Theo’s back as he opens his mouth under Theo’s, meets Theo’s tongue with his own. He’s still sleep-warm and a little clumsy, staggering some when Theo moves the hand he’d had in his shirt to his waist, yanks him tight against himself.

“Now who’s the rabbit?” Liam pants out, pulling back some; Theo takes advantage to bury his face in Liam’s neck, bite at the tendon there.

“You,” Theo replies, one-hundred percent sincere, “Definitely you.”

And it’s _true_. Theo isn’t going to deny that he’s had his moments—now, the boy’s locker room after a particularly _spectacular_ game-winning goal that Liam had scored, and once, memorably, the bathroom at Raley’s with Liam pushed up against the door and Theo’s hand over his mouth—but Liam is relentless, and insatiable, and kind of an asshole; he takes a particular kind of pleasure in knowing how much he gets to Theo, and he _uses_ it. He’s cornered Theo in his room with his parents downstairs, in the backseat of Theo’s truck, in the McCall’s upstairs bathroom during a pack dinner, and once—very nearly getting them both murdered with _extreme prejudice_ by Malia—up against a tree in the Preserve during one of the pack’s patrols-slash-runs, Liam’s mouth burning hot around him with Theo nearly biting his lip bloody to try and stay quiet, for all the good it’d done them.

That last memory drives a bolt of heat through Theo and he groans, pivots some so that he can push Liam up against the bathroom wall, goes to his knees. Liam bites off a sound suspiciously like a whimper and buries his hands in Theo’s hair, lifting his hips off the wall when Theo gets his fingers wrapped around Liam’s sweatpants and underwear and yanks them down.

“Jesus,” Liam comments breathily, “Talk about zero-to-sixty, I really think we should revisit the whole who’s-the-rab _bit—_ ”

He cuts off in a high-pitched moan as Theo leans forward and swallows him down, one hand on Liam’s hip to hold him against the wall and the other wrapped around the base of Liam’s cock. Liam wants to move, his hips twitching under Theo’s hands and his thighs straining, but Theo holds him still, flattens the hand he’d had wrapped around Liam’s cock over his stomach as Theo takes him deeper, rubs at the underside of Liam’s cock with his tongue.

“Christ, christ,” Liam pants, his fingers clenching rhythmically in Theo’s hair, “Let me move, Theo, c’mon.”

But Theo—Theo likes the feeling of Liam straining against him, slides his hand up and off of his hip, over his stomach until he’s bracing his forearm against Liam’s abdomen, pinning him. His other hand he slides down Liam’s thigh, then around until he can encourage it up and over his shoulder, Liam’s heel digging into his back. It opens Liam up enough that Theo can rub two fingers over his entrance, Liam jerking in his grip even with Theo’s restraining arm. They don’t have lube so Theo doesn’t press in, just keeps circling, uses just enough pressure to be a tease without giving Liam what he clearly wants.

“You dick,” Liam accuses, but his voice is so shredded that it loses whatever force it might have had, even setting aside Liam’s clutching hands and the minute twitches of his hips.

Theo mentally grins and redoubles his efforts, head bobbing and tongue working. He shifts forward so that his shoulder drives Liam’s leg higher up against his chest, opening him up further; Liam cries out and his head _thunks_ back against the wall, his heel scraping up Theo’s back. From the fluttering of his stomach muscles under Theo’s restraining forearm and the twitches of the muscles in his thighs, he’s close, so Theo takes him in deep, deep enough that he can feel Liam in his throat, that Liam can feel it when Theo purposefully swallows.

“Theo!” Liam all but shouts, and comes.

Theo swallows and then pulls back some, gentles Liam through the rest of his orgasm and then pulls back the rest of the way, resting his forehead against Liam’s hip with a quiet moan of his own; the way Liam smells—sweat and sex and, underneath that, his own, unique scent—is intoxicating, and Theo grinds his heel against his own aching cock to try and relieve some of his own overwhelming arousal.

“You asshole, get—get up here,” Liam orders, tugging at Theo’s hair.

Theo goes, letting Liam’s leg fall away from his shoulder. Liam keeps his hands in Theo’s hair, uses it to hold him in place as he kisses him, licking into his mouth, biting at his lips. Groaning, Theo presses hard against him, driving him back into the wall. He can feel a few spots of wetness on his own shirt as Liam’s bloody one soaks into his, but, well; this is why Theo sleeps in cheap white shirts bought in bulk.

“Why are you still so _dressed_?” Liam complains finally, apparently back with it enough to notice that Theo’s still fully-clothed and to be irritated by it.

He moves to correct the problem, though, Theo has to give him that; he lets go of Theo’s hair to tangle his fingers in the hem of Theo’s shirt, yank it upwards, Theo pulling reluctantly back from Liam’s mouth to let him finish pulling it off. He dives back in immediately to reclaim Liam’s mouth, so he feels it instead of sees it when Liam drops his hands to shove Theo’s sweatpants and underwear down and off.

In the next instant he gets his hand wrapped around Theo and Theo has to pull away, has to press his forehead against Liam’s shoulder and gasp as Liam starts to work him. Theo tilts his head so he can see between their bodies, watches in dazed arousal as Liam works him. Liam keeps that up for a minute or so and then he suddenly pushes forward, hand still on Theo but paused in its strokes, Theo moaning in protest.

“You’ll like this better,” Liam promises him lowly, continuing to guide him backwards, “This’ll be worth it, you’ll see.”

Theo really isn’t in any state to make witty comebacks, his mind still a mess of interrupted arousal and Liam’s hand still on him like a promise, so he finds himself following where Liam leads, walking backwards out of the bathroom and back into the bedroom until the backs of his knees hit his mattress. He manages to sit more or less gracefully and Liam keeps coming forward until he’s straddling Theo. He takes his hand away but it's less tragic than it could be, since he’s close enough now that Theo can wrap his arms around Liam’s waist to pull him in tight, grind against his stomach.

He’s a little lost in the sensation, but even still he feels it when Liam leans over, when he yanks open the nightstand drawer and starts rooting around. And suddenly Theo knows where Liam’s head had gone, is right there with him, and he has to bite at Liam’s shoulder—still covered in his ruined shirt, they’re really going to have to do something about that—to muffle his desperate groan.

Liam settles back fully into Theo’s lap, lube in hand. But when Theo takes one hand off his hips to reach for it, he holds it away, shakes his head and then grins a Cheshire grin and uses his other hand to push Theo back and flat.

“Like I said, this’ll be worth it,” He says, eyes glinting in the dim light coming in through the windows.

Theo can’t respond, just watches as Liam finally— _finally_ —strips off his ruined shirt and tosses it away, then leans down to kiss Theo. It’s so clearly a distraction that Theo would be insulted if he wasn’t so desperate for what Liam’s offering, rising up to claim Liam’s mouth, his hands spasming on the tops of Liam’s thighs when he hears the sound of lube _snicking_ open. He focuses his hearing, listening for the wet sound of it as Liam gets some of the lube out, as he rubs his fingers together to get them wet.

And then as much as he wants to keep kissing Liam, keep chasing his tongue, he has to break away, has to watch as Liam rises up on his knees and brings his lube-slick fingers back to his entrance, starts working himself open. Theo darts a glance up at Liam’s face when he makes a small, punched-out noise; Liam’s eyes fall shut and his mouth falls open slightly. Theo moans helplessly and kneads his hands around Liam’s thighs, feeling his muscles start to tremble. After a few seconds Liam falls forward some, catches himself with his free hand on Theo’s chest, eyes heavy-lidded as he meets Theo’s eyes, his body rocking in response to his own ministrations.

“Jesus _Christ_ , Liam,” Theo whispers, the ache in his own cock almost forgotten, attention completely wrapped in the sight of Liam working himself open.

“Told—told you,” Liam pants smugly, and then moans, eyes squeezing shut and his fingers digging furrows into Theo’s chest.

“You were right,” Theo tells him, all but babbling at this point.

Liam grins at him but it’s a sloppy grin, distracted, his hand clenching and relaxing rhythmically on Theo’s chest. His arm starts to tremble and that’s it, that’s all Theo can take; he sits up, ignoring Liam’s protest, and gets one hand on the upper-half of the arm Liam’s using to work himself open, slides it down until he meets Liam’s fingers at his entrance. He’s got two buried inside and Theo groans, presses his face against the side of Liam’s as he searches around with his other hand until he can find the discarded bottle of lube, bring it around so that he can drizzle some over his and Liam’s fingers.

“Theo,” Liam pants, hips jerking, cock starting to harden again against Theo’s stomach.

“Let me,” Theo murmurs, nosing at Liam’s jaw, his cheek, “Let me help.”

He keeps his fingers where they are, doesn’t press in, waiting. After a second he feels Liam’s head bob in a jerky nod and he groans, buries his face in Liam’s neck and presses one of his fingers in alongside Liam’s two. It takes them a minute to find a rhythm but once they do Liam cries out and his whole body goes taut, then boneless, Liam slumping against Theo’s chest. Theo wraps his free arm around Liam’s shoulders to hold him steady and keeps working him alongside Liam’s own fingers, and only stops when Liam reaches back with his free hand and clamps down on his wrist.

Theo pulls back to look at him and Liam grins at him, molasses-slow, his eyes heavy-lidded. He slowly draws Theo’s hand out and away from himself, withdraws his own hand. He keeps hold of Theo’s hand, deposits it on his hip, then reaches up to find Theo’s other hand until he can drag that down, too. Both of Theo’s hands now on his hips, he searches the sheets until he finds the bottle of lube, squeezes some out onto one palm, and reaches forward to wrap his hand around Theo’s cock, Theo swallowing back a cry. Liam smirks at him and then rises up on his knees, uses the hand he’s got around Theo to hold him steady so that Liam can position Theo at his entrance, sink down.

His other hand comes up to clutch at Theo’s shoulder, his mouth open as he makes a series of hitching sounds as he slowly, slowly lowers himself down until Theo is fully seated. He drops his forehead against Theo’s and then brings his now-free hand up to wrap around Theo’s shoulders, scratch at his back.

“C’mon, Theo,” He orders quietly, “C’mon.”

“Liam, jesus,” Theo grits out, and then he starts to move.

He uses the hands that Liam had placed on his own hips to help lift him up, drive him back down a few times, Liam crying out as he does. It’s spine-meltingly good but it’s also not _enough_ , the position such that Theo can’t get the leverage he wants, so he wraps his arms around Liam’s waist, stills him just long enough that he can rise up, get his knees underneath him so that now he can push up into Liam as he drags him down, Liam’s fingers clutching tight enough to burn on his shoulders and his head falling back.

Liam gets his feet underneath himself and starts moving in tandem, his arms coming around to wrap tightly around Theo’s shoulders, the very tips of his nails taking on just a hint of supernatural sharpness. Theo hisses and redoubles his efforts, and then—when that isn’t enough, either—he slides his hands down and off of Liam’s hips to the back of his knees, tips them forward so that he’s got Liam underneath him, Liam’s hips tilted up at just the right angle.

Liam cries out a the position change and closes his legs around Theo’s back, crossing his ankles and pulling him in tight, tight. He keeps one hand on Theo’s back, slides it up until he can bury it in Theo’s hair, the other dropping to clutch in the sheets, anchor him some as Theo continues to drive into him. The new position means that the hard, hot line of Liam’s cock is trapped between their stomachs, and Theo can feel in the quickly-ratcheting tension in Liam’s muscles, the short, sharp pants Liam is breathing against the top of his head, that Liam is getting close. So Theo bends him even further in half, changes the angle of his thrusts, and knows the second he’s hit the spot that he’d been aiming for because Liam’s whole back bows and his mouth opens in a soundless cry as he comes.

Theo buries a cry of his own in Liam’s shoulder, Liam tightening around him, his legs and arms squeezing tight around Theo’s back. It only takes a few more desperate thrusts and then Theo is coming, too, tipping over the edge and biting at Liam’s collarbone as he does.

They stay curled around each other for a few long moments, and then Liam lets out a gusty exhale and relaxes his arms and legs, lets them fall bonelessly away from Theo. Theo follows suit, releasing his grip on Liam’s legs and straightening out, shifting some so that he can slip out of Liam. He has no intention of going far—just shifting to the side so that his whole weight isn’t resting on Liam—but Liam makes a protesting noise and brings his knees back up to cage Theo’s hips. Oddly warmed by the act, Theo settles back down over Liam and brings his hands up so he can cup either side of Liam’s face, kiss him. Liam opens his mouth immediately, one hand coming up to tangle in Theo’s hair.

After a few long minutes of that, Liam finally lowers one of his knees. Theo takes it for the invitation that it is and slides off of him onto his back, then furrows his brow some when Liam almost immediately follows, as he brings one knee over Theo’s closest leg in a loose pin. He props himself up on an elbow and stares down at Theo, studying him, expression a little unreadable even setting aside the dim lighting.

When he  _does_ finally speak, it doesn’t help clear anything up, “I’m not Nolan.” Theo opens his mouth, about to say _clearly_ , and also _what the actual hell_ —did Liam think he’d somehow forgotten that?—but Liam isn’t done, “I’m not Stiles, and I’m not Lydia.”

_Oh_ , Theo realizes in that instant. Liam looks at him shrewdly, obviously trying to assess whether he actually believes that Theo has recognized his point, so Theo brings one hand over until he can run the backs of his knuckles lightly across Liam’s stomach, streaked with dried blood and Liam’s release. He drags them directly over where, less than half an hour ago, five long, deep claw marks had existed for the brief time—for _half a second_ —before Liam’s healing had completely erased them.

“And I’m not Alec, or Derek,” Theo tells him quietly, an answer to Liam’s unspoken question: that Theo understands that he isn’t a shapeshifter helplessly attached to a human, with all the attendant risks; that he understands that Liam is just as capable as Theo is, and he doesn’t need Theo’s protection.

Liam studies his face for a few seconds longer, but he must see something to convince him, because he smirks and leans down to kiss Theo deeply, but quickly. Then he slides over the top of Theo and off the bed, padding into the bathroom. Theo watches him go, not just because the view is _spectacular_ , though it is, but because he’s curious. In the next second he has his answer, the water coming on briefly and then Liam reappearing, wet washcloth in hand.

He drops back onto the edge of the mattress and reaches for Theo with the washcloth, runs it over his stomach and thighs and cock, Theo shuddering and his heels slipping against the sheets, over-sensitive. Liam grins and for half a second Theo thinks he’s going to keep going, but he lifts the washcloth away and scrubs at his own stomach, cleaning off the blood and come. Then he balls up the washcloth and throws it back towards the bathroom, where it lands somewhere out of sight on the tile with a wet _plop_.

Theo rolls his eyes, “Classy.”

Liam just grins and leans down to kiss him again, then starts shoving at his shoulder with one hand while pulling up the comforter with the other, starts to clamber his way underneath. Theo snorts out a laugh and shifts so that he can wrestle the comforter out from underneath himself, too, settle beneath it. As soon as he does Liam rolls over, throws one of his legs over both of Theo’s and an arm around his waist, his head on Theo’s left shoulder. Theo wraps his left arm around Liam’s back, settles his other on the curve of Liam’s hip, and turns so that he’s facing Liam, breathing him in.

He’s already drifting off when Liam suddenly says, “Don’t think your distraction sex worked, you still owe me a new shirt.”

Theo can’t help his incredulous snort, because, first, _distraction sex_?, and second, “Considering that it was my shirt to begin with, and it’s like the fifteenth one you’ve stolen, I’d say _you_ owe _me_ a shirt.”

“Yeah, whatever,” Liam mumbles, sounding already half-asleep, “Put it on my tab.”

**Author's Note:**

> Edited to say: I have tumblr now! If you liked, consider a [reblog](https://eneiryu.tumblr.com/post/182479697040/said-the-villagers-to-the-knight-weve-already).


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